A May 3 letter written by the Deputy Attorney for Maricopa County reveals that the required routers and admin passwords were not delivered to the team hired by the Republican-led Senate to perform the forensic audit of the 2020 Maricopa election. The routers and passwords were part of the required subpoenaed material. Per Judge Thomason’s Feb. 25 order, “The statutes of this State give the Senators the right to issue subpoenas and to enforce those subpoenas.”

The letter states that the Maricopa County attorney could not deliver the promised “virtual images” of the routers because they could not adequately redact “confidential law enforcement data.” According to the letter, there were also concerns that handing over the routers could put “sensitive, confidential data belonging to Maricopa County citizens” such as health information and social security numbers.”

It seems that LaRue was an early defender of the “superbly run election” when he posted his support for the Biden/Harris win on Nov. 24:

Additionally, per the letter, on April 30, audit liaison Ken Bennett had requested “additional passwords, user names and/or security keys utilized with the County’s precinct-based tabulators.” It should be noted that Bennett is merely the liaison between the Senate and Doug Logan. Logan is the manager for the audit.

Many are questioning who had control over the election if Maricopa County admitted they did not have passwords to manage the Dominion Voting Machines equipment. As Bennett explains below, there are still some passwords missing for the scanners—it seems to be that Maricopa County never had them. Admin passwords could also contain critical information for the new audit.

UncoverDC spoke with Rep. Mark Finchem Thursday about several issues related to the ongoing audit as well as the sine die adjournment of the legislature. The rules of the Arizona House of Representatives state, “Except as provided herein, regular sessions shall be adjourned sine die no later than Saturday of the week in which the one-hundredth day from the beginning of each regular session falls. The Speaker may by declaration authorize the extension of the session for a period not to exceed seven additional days.” Sine die essentially means an adjournment without a set date to resume business.

This sine die adjournment is significant for several reasons:

• The ongoing audit in which the results may impact the state of Arizona.
• A municipal election coming up in August. (This is an “important dry run” for the 2022 election, according to Finchem.)
• New election integrity laws that have been signed by Governor Ducey and previously reported by UncoverDC all require a 90-day grace period before going into effect to allow for proper comment and review.

The hotly debated HR1 bill could also profoundly affect how future elections are conducted, giving more control over elections to the federal government. Arizona is not the only state concerned with passing new laws to protect its elections. Georgia and New Hampshire are also passing laws. Today, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a “sweeping election reform bill” into law ostensively to protect his state from federal encroachment on its elections.

Concerning the unfortunate timing of the sine die adjournment, the legislature must address fraud and other findings, which, if not in session, cannot perform those duties. Many Arizonans are calling for an extended recess or a special session. As of tomorrow, all per diem reimbursements end, which would leave legislators working without reimbursement for their living expenses under sine die. The Arizona Red Roots Telegram room is calling for citizens to call and email legislators to remain in session with their email blast.

The email states, in part, that “The Senate must remain in session to enforce existing and potential subpoenas and pass new election integrity legislation. Since Arizona is currently under a state of emergency, full power returns to Governor Ducey as the Executive Branch once the session ends.”

UncoverDC asked Finchem if he could comment on the DOJ letter sent to Senate Karen Fann on May 5, as reported by UncoverDC. Finchem focused on the part of the letter that referred to a potential canvassing of voters as “[raising] concerns over potential intimidation of voters.” 

Finchem also explained that the voter rolls have already been purged of deceased voters. And, as for calling or knocking on doors, he said, “it would be difficult to prove intimidation” based on the questions that such canvassing would require—sample questions could include: Did you vote? And if you did vote, did you use this address? The DOJ only has “limited jurisdiction, and they must prove harassment and intimidation occurred,” explained Finchem.

“The canvassing hasn’t even been done yet,” said Finchem. “So they are predicting problems that haven’t even occurred. I am more interested in examining whether addresses are suspect are government buildings.” He added, “That is against the law.”

Finchem also commented on former Democrat County Recorder Adrian Fontes, who lost his seat to Republican Stephen Richer by approx 44k votes. Fontes received over 200 complaints from voters and heavy criticism from the Board of Supervisors for delays in opening polls, ballot security issues, poor training of poll workers, among other complaints. Finchem said that the DOJ might make better use of their time looking at “voter suppression issues” under the leadership of Fontes.

GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward, who has provided daily updates on the Maricopa audit, appeared on the John Solomon Podcast Wednesday. Concerning the experts hired for the audit, she told Solomon, “The experts that they hired to do this audit, you know, the left is trying to discredit them and belittle them and really besmirch their abilities, they are world-class experts at doing the work that is being done in Arizona. And so we’re not just looking at the paper ballots, we’re looking at the paper, we’re looking to make sure that those ballots are legitimate, and at the machinery to make sure that the hardware, the software, the logs, etc., were also legitimate.”

She continued, “And, you know, over 50% of Americans believe that there was funny business in 2020. And I think anybody should want to know what happened in that election, especially when we had record turnout, maybe more than 100% turnout in many places across the country. We have to know what happened in that election so that no funny business ever happens again, and people can have confidence that when they cast their vote, it’s going to be counted, it’s going to be counted once, and it’s going to be counted for the person that they filled in the bubble for or pushed the button for.”

Ward is watching closely, as indicated by a Twitter post late yesterday. She seems to be concerned about the removal of external drives to an “undisclosed location” by a contractor or employee of Dominion working for Maricopa County.

In terms of when all the pieces of the audit will be finished, Finchem believes it could go well into September, with the report taking a week or so after that. According to reporter Brahm Resnik of KPNX, ballot-counting machines and other equipment were returned to the county on April 30.

 

The deadline for the temporary move out of the Coliseum due to a planned graduation event to take place there is set for May 14. The details of where the operations will be stored until the move back into the Coliseum after the graduation ceremonies cannot be disclosed due to security concerns.